


Break of Day

by Excelsior10



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Canon Compliant, Explicit Language, Gen, Mentions of Animal Cruelty, Missing Scenes, One-Shots, Physical Abuse, Shelby family dynamics and character study, TRAUMA AND ANGST what else is new, explicit violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:27:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25266844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Excelsior10/pseuds/Excelsior10
Summary: "Poppies whose roots are in man's veins."Title taken from the poem "Break of Day in the Trenches" by Isaac Rosenberg.A collection of canon compliant one-shots revolving around missing moments from the past.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 27





	1. the last degree of red

_December 22nd, 1915_

  
  


A shell dropped, whistling through the air like a tea kettle. Tommy gritted his teeth and they were smeared brown with dirt, and Freddie was thinking about muddy footprints in white snow, that odd feeling you get when observing them and knowing someone had already been there and left them behind. They belonged to someone, those footprints, but no one around remembered who. That was what it felt like, being in the war. The country had forgotten about them, their friends and families and lovers had all forgotten about them, but there they still were, leaving their bodies on the frozen ground, the imprint of their souls. A grenade popped and chunks of icy earth ricocheted through the air, knocking against their heads. Tommy wasn’t even wearing his helmet, Freddie saw. They didn’t use them much, down in the tunnels. But they weren’t in the tunnels now. 

“Take _COVER,”_ a hoarse voice yelled, and something came down on his head and the black swallowed him before he even hit the ground. 

  
  
  
  


Tommy was sitting beside his cot, legs stretched out, smoking. Freddie remembered sharing their first cigarette when they were nine, stolen from the pocket of Tommy’s father’s coat. Freddie had coughed, but Tommy didn’t. 

“So the world will be forced to endure seeing your ugly mug for another day,” Tommy said, lowly, his eyes fixed on the glowing embers of his cigarette instead of Freddie’s face. His head was pounding like someone was beating on it. 

“Maybe even two,” Freddie said, trying to sit up. It took him a while. 

“Concussion,” Tommy said, unprompted, eyes now following the drifting smoke. The med tent was cramped and dimly lit. “Might’ve knocked some sense into you, God willing.” A man on a cot beside Freddie started hacking like he had forgotten his lungs out in the wasteland somewhere and was trying to learn to breathe without them. 

“Been a while since I’ve heard you talk about God,” Freddie said, closing his eyes to stop the room from swimming in his view. Tommy’s lip twitched in a mocking smile. 

“Been a while since I’ve had anything to say.” 

Freddie frowned slightly. Tommy was not a devout man. Freddie had never seen him cross himself, or pray, but he had also never heard this. 

“You don’t think-?” he started to ask, before he had thought better of it, but Tommy interrupted with a scoff and a hand drug down his dirty face, mud under his nails and knuckles split from colliding with a wooden support underground. 

“No,” he said, shortly, and a man to Freddie’s left groaned, probably waking from the morphine. There was never enough morphine. 

“No?” Freddie asked, wincing as he leaned on his elbows. 

“No, I don’t think so,” Tommy said, sarcastically elaborately. 

“Why not, then?” Freddie asked, and his friend looked at him with a nonplussed expression. 

“Because what part of _this,”_ he said after a moment, sweeping his hand to generalize, “makes you fucking believe in any of that?” 

Tommy hadn’t talked much in school, because Tommy didn’t talk much at all, but when he did the teachers had always gone on about his foul language. A mark of poor breeding, they said. The message of the words had never mattered to them, had never even been given a second thought. Catholic schooling seemed to have a way of making the rebels _worse,_ Freddie noticed. Tommy had grown quieter and quieter until he had stopped attending at all, just another empty desk, another family with bigger issues than something trivial as school when there were bellies needed filling. But Tommy had always been quick, and it wasn’t his fault the teachers had refused to see it. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t believe in anything, when he had never been given anything to. 

“God doesn’t cause war,” was all Freddie said, and Tommy snorted, sending a stream of smoke out of his nose as if to say _He’s caused plenty._

“He’s not fucking stopping it, either,” he said, and took another drag, chest rising and blue eyes lit up from the little amber glow. 

  
  


_April 7th, 1906_

  
  


Arthur folded his legs underneath him, crouching down to sit next to Tommy, whose own legs were dangling off the edge of the canal, the water as grey and unmoving as the sky. A factory billowed black coal smoke into the air in the distance. Tommy was rubbing his fingers together distractedly, red and cut like he had been playing with knives again. Arthur didn’t speak, just waited for Tommy, to see if he wanted to talk. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t. That’s just how Tommy was. A forge billowed behind them. 

“Look,” Arthur’s younger brother said, tossing his cap into Arthur’s lap onto his crossed legs. 

“Yeah, it’s an ‘at, Tom,” Arthur said, puzzled, and the corner of Tommy’s lip twitched. 

“Look at the brim,” he said, and Arthur turned it over, flipping it in his hand, and as he did so, something sharp caught suddenly against his finger. 

“Ouch- shit- fuckin’ _hell-,”_ he swore, nearly dropping the cap, but Tommy’s hand shot out to catch it before it fell down into the murky water. Red blood began to seep from Arthur’s ring finger. 

“Careful,” Tommy said, mildly, and of course the cap hadn’t cut _him_ when he caught it _,_ “took me a good hour to get the little bastards on.” 

“Could’ve given a bloke some bloody warning,” Arthur grumbled. “What is it?” He asked, cautiously reaching for the cap back, wiping the blood on his finger idly into the dirt. “Knives, or...?” 

“Blades,” Tommy said, inspecting his own handiwork as he passed it over, the silver glinting off his icy eyes, “Razor blades. Easy to carry, hard to spot.” 

He folded the hat backwards, exposing the seam, and a blade was indeed sewn into the brim, peeking out innocently like a spring tulip from the dirt. Arthur’s finger throbbed. 

“Better not let Pol see,” Arthur said, and he caught the slight roll of Tommy’s eyes. He had stopped being afraid of their aunt longer ago than Arthur could even remember, before Arthur and John had begun pretending they felt the same. “She’d not approve.” 

“Disapprove,” Tommy corrected, because he was a little twat. He spun the hat around on his bloody fist. 

“Whatever,” Arthur grunted. “She’ll have your cock on a pike. Just keep it outta sight.” 

Tommy shrugged nonchalantly, like he couldn’t have cared less if their aunt wanted to give his neutering a go, like he would challenge anyone to try, the dull glint flashing as the brim went in circles, around and around. Tommy had an oddly intense air, like a coiled snake, that typically made people give him a good bit of berth. And if they didn’t, they learned to. Arthur’s eyes watched the movement of the cap, narrowing slightly as he prepared himself to swallow his pride and ask. He was no good with a needle and thread. 

“Make me one?” he asked, brusquely, and Tommy’s gaze turned to him for the first time, his eyes glowing brightly against the gloom, every year, he looked harder, every year he looked sharper. 

“Hmm?” He said, which is what he did when Arthur interrupted his thoughts. 

“Will you make me one o’ them?” Arthur asked, nodding down at the cap. Tommy stopped it spinning and observed it curiously like it was a strange animal he had never seen before. 

“Keep it,” he said, tossing it to Arthur, who caught it gently. Tommy pulled out his cigarettes and pulled up his knees, leaning back on his elbow as he opened his case, which Arthur noticed had gone from leather to tin since the last time he had seen it. Franklin Jennings had had a tin case just like that, the other day in the pub, but Arthur somehow doubted he had it anymore. 

“You sure?” Arthur asked, and Tommy’s eyes flickered down to the vibrant red slices across his fingers, and he shrugged again. 

“Yeah,” he said, striking a match. “I can make more.” 

“Might want to wear some fuckin’ gloves,” Arthur said, admiring his new weapon. “Cause John’ll be wanting one, too.” 

Tommy chuckled quietly. 

“Bring me some more razors, then, eh?” he said, closing his eyes and blowing out grey, just like the smokestacks on the gritty horizon behind him. 

_November 25, 1914_

  
  


The Garrison glowed with a modestly dull sort of light and the din of boisterous voices. It was significantly more crowded than Tommy would have prefered, but he was already fucking there, wasn’t he, so he might as well find his brothers, might as well have a drink. He thought about getting some girl, too, but decided it wasn’t even worth the trouble. The thrill had worn off long ago, after all, and disappointingly quickly, too. At least whisky still burned the same. He pushed open the set of double doors, listening for his brothers, blinking in the lamplight. There was a piano set in the corner, but no one sat at it. Tommy had told them no, because the boy who had used to sing and play had gotten blown in half on a ship, fighting for his country, and there should be honor in his death. And they had listened to him. He slid into his spot at the counter, the one he had been sitting in since he was sixteen. He thought Harry probably reserved it for him, that, or it was just known that it was to remain empty. The barkeep looked up. He didn’t smile, but Tommy didn’t want him to. They were always twitchy, nervous smiles that put Tommy’s own teeth on edge. 

“‘Ello, Mr. Shelby,” he said, ducking his head in a half-bow. “What’re you having?” he called, over his shoulder, even though he was already reaching for a whisky glass. 

“Have a guess, Harry,” Tommy said, tossing him a smirk, which seemed to make him ease up slightly. He slid Tommy his glass, waving off the payment. Tommy put it on the counter anyway. People needed to know he could afford to. He studied the color of the whisky, tried to imagine how it would taste before he took a swallow, tried not to think about how it looked like Gretta’s eyes in the sun. Harry shuffled back over to him. 

“Er- Tommy,” Harry said, a note in his tone that Tommy didn’t like, and the use of his first name, which he also didn’t like, resulted in Tommy not looking up from his glass. “Look, I’m sorry to bother you, I mean, listen, I wouldn’t ask, normally, but there’s a-,” Tommy lifted his gaze and fixed it on Harry, and he faltered slightly, but continued on, “there’s a man outside causing a scene, and he’s scaring the customers, sir-,” 

“Causing a scene?” Tommy repeated slowly, lifting an eyebrow. “In Small Heath? The fuck’s he managing?” 

“I don’t know, sir, but there’s people watching, and- and shouting,” Harry said, twisting the cloth he was holding in his hands. “It’s bad for business, Mr. Shelby.”

“You ready to owe me a favor, Harry?” Tommy asked, quietly. It was better to be said. Better to be acknowledged outright. Harry swallowed, and then nodded. Tommy tossed back his drink, let it simmer in his chest like embers. 

“Don’t let anybody take me fucking chair,” he said, firmly, pointing at it, and he turned to walk out of the pub. 

  
  
  
  


It was fucking cold outside, and drizzling. Tommy needed a new coat. The rain splattered off of cobblestone and hissed off of tin, hushing other noises but one, and Tommy followed it, using mostly memory to navigate the dark street. He pulled to a stop at the end of Garrison Lane, watching. 

A man was beating a scraggly paint horse with a whip that was whistling through the air and cracking off the stone, the lashes coming down like the sting of the rain, the horse’s petrified noises echoing off of the close, grey tenement halls. Tommy had assumed it was a paint horse, anyway, until he drew closer, his heart clenching, and realized that the horse itself was brown, but covered in white lather from it’s exertion. The heavy cart behind it was loaded with coal, a mound of it, blacker than the night sky, too much for one animal to ever be expected to haul. The horse’s knees were trembling, knocking together like Finn’s had when he had learned to walk, barely managing to stand upright. There was indeed a gathering of people who had halted, watching, looking uneasy, muttering amongst themselves. The whip fell. A mother covered her child’s eyes with her hand, dipped her hat to cover her face from the rain, and turned away. The man dropped the whip again with a guttural shout that the horse matched, skittering away, its hooves slipping and clopping on the wet pavement-,

“Oi!” Tommy called out, stalking forward, his hands already clenched into fists. The man turned, swaying a bit, fixing his beady eyes on Tommy. He had a heavy mustache and a wide face, was a good head taller than Tommy was, and probably twice as wide. He twitched the whip in his hand. Something was coursing through Tommy like cocaine, purer, brighter, burning white and searing hot. 

“What’re you lookin’ at?” The man drawled, turning, wobbling slightly. Tommy stepped closer, the huddled people drew a collective breath. 

“Get the fuck away from the horse,” Tommy said, rage bubbling like venom, like cold rain on hot stone, sizzling, 

“Who the fuck are you?” the man spat, leering. His accent was southern, and Tommy smirked humorlessly. 

“Get away. From the fucking. Horse,” he said, evenly. “You’ve three seconds. If you can’t count that high, I’ll do it for you.” 

The man looked at him, and then spit, and then grinned, and then laughed. Tommy blinked. His heart was thrumming inside his chest, the horse fell to the ground behind the drunken man with a pitiful tremble, Tommy took off his cap. The time was up, and there was the siren, blaring in Tommy’s head, waking him waking him waking him up. He was dizzy with it. 

“Or what?” the man asked, and Tommy shrugged. The horse took a broken, rattling breath, it sounded like Gretta, it sounded like-, 

“I’ll kill you,” Tommy said, the man hooted. “One,” Tommy said, others were baking away but the man was moving forward slowly, the horse’s blood was dripping off the whip it had been beaten with, the animal's side wasn’t rising, the rain was slipping into Tommy’s exposed hair and tickling ice down his collar. “Two.” And he was going going going numb, flipping like a coin landed tails, and then he was moving forward. “Three.” 

He had already broken the man’s knee before he got a thick fist to the face. Anything breaks, if you step on it hard enough, Tommy had felt it crack under his shoe like wood, but now the man was pummeling him, his blows sending Tommy reeling, stars exploding behind his eyes, lights washing out- his vision came back a moment later as he hit the solid, frozen ground, soaked with rain, eye to eye with a dead horse, the blood running in dark rivlets into the rainwater, the cobblestones and coal dust grimy against Tommy’s cheek, the horse’s eyes glazed over. He kicked out, colliding with something hard, maybe a shin, stumbling to his feet. The man was muttering, cursing, clutching his leg. He toppled over, landing on his palms in the street. Tommy walked over to him, his shoes crunching softly against the gravel, crouching down, wiping the coppery blood from his mouth with the back of his wet hand as he did, mixing with the rain on his skin. 

“My name,” he said, quietly, “is Thomas Shelby.” 

“Dirty fuckin’ pikey,” the man spat, but Tommy could see the tremor, see the terror in his face as he looked down at him, he felt it flood him with a sickening rush, his heel collided with the man’s jaw and the man spat out a tooth with his next words, splattering red drops that looked black in the night, on the ground, across Tommy’s knuckles, “All over some useless fuckin’ beast-,” 

The horse’s blank eyes reflected the light spilling onto the street from the dusty windows, Tommy made himself look, made himself choose, realized he didn’t have a choice. He folded his cap. The razors glinted like little fallen stars, sliced into the man’s eyes like jelly, he screams like his horse , Tommy thought- 

“What’re you looking at?” he asked, coldy, cruelly, blood dripping onto his hands, holding the man up by his dirty shirt lapels, the man garbled and screamed and clawed at his face and Tommy stood, shaking violently, flooded and open and swimming in it, drowning in it, he picked up the heavy, bloody whip. 

  
  


Tommy walked slowly back to the Garrison, his hands jammed to fists inside his pockets. They were concerningly still. He had thought that they would tremble. He didn’t remember dropping the whip or walking away. He didn’t remember if he had checked to see if the man was still alive. He thought he should care. It was odd, having so much in his mind that he didn’t know what to do with. It was odd that he couldn’t feel his feet hitting the ground, couldn’t feel the pain he had expected. It was odd, he told himself, but really, it was freeing. He just didn't know that yet. 

“Mr. Shelby,” Harry said when Tommy entered, his cloth slipping between his fingers onto the counter, for a moment, Tommy thought he saw it splattered with-, 

But that was his hands, red staining over pale skin, “Get me a whisky, Harry,” Tommy said, and was momentarily, bizarrely pleased that no one had sat in his chair while he was gone. 

“Mr. Shelby,” Harry said again, aghast, “you’re covered in-,” 

And then Tommy realized everyone in the room had gone silent and was staring at him, mouths open, even with drinks halfway raised, in some cases, Tommy slid easily onto the stool, meeting eyes, wondering what expression was on his own face, wondering if there even was one. He couldn’t feel it, he couldn’t feel anything. 

“You’re covered in blood,” Harry finished, and he was, wasn’t he. His hand shook. No one spoke. “I only wanted you to move him along-,” the bartender was saying, quietly, Tommy was hearing the dying horse’s echoing scream in his ears, he closed his eyes and gritted his teeth as if that would help drown it out. 

“Whisky, Harry,” he repeated, sharply, he could see his own reflection in the bar, warped and splattered in red blood so dark in the night it was black- 

He downed the glass that was pushed hesitantly towards him. It went down his throat like water. And now even the whisky doesn’t burn the same, he thought, 

“They’ll be coming for you, sir,” Harry said, and Tommy nodded. 

“I know.” 

“Did you kill him?” Harry asked, quietly. Others were listening, Tommy could feel them. The power and the rage surged through his veins. He felt nothing. He felt everything. 

“Dunno,” he said. Then, after several moments of silence, of staring into his own eyes in the golden bar, “I hope not.” 

Harry’s eyes gentled slightly, and Tommy thought he had been about to reach out and put a hand on Tommy’s shoulder, but Tommy pulled back, out of Harry’s reach. Gretta’s eyes, like whisky, dead like the horse’s. 

“I hope not,” Tommy continued, in a low, soft tone, clinking his father’s ring against the whisky glass. “I hope he lives a long, long life. And I hope he spends every moment in darkness, I hope he doesn't know whether or not he’s even fucking awake.” 

  
  
  


Harry froze, for a moment, the worrying motion of his hands wiping down another glass ceasing. 

“Know something about darkness, do you, Thomas?” he asked, and Tommy stared at him with those eerie eyes, and smiled. He pulled out his cigarettes, his blood-sticky fingers leaving red impressions on them. 

“I’m calling in my favor,” he said. Harry blinked furiously, his mouth opening. “You give me ten pound, and you tell the coppers you never saw me tonight.” He pulled out a matchbook, struck the little red head until it glowed. “Or, I tell them you were trying to involve me in a murder-for-hire plot. Give them all the details, you know. Say you put me up to it. And how would that look for business, Harry?” He asked, mockingly sincere, inhaling his smoke in a white trickle. He finished his whisky. “Your choice.” He may have just killed a man. He blinked, his handsome young face dappled in red like the freckles that had once been sprinkled across his nose. Harry went to the register. Tommy nodded when Harry passed him the money. 

“For me new coat,” he said, with the pounds held between red fingers. There was a terrifying sort of emptiness in his eyes Harry had never seen. “Pleasure doing business.” 

He was shrugging on his coat, and he was right, he did need a new one, 

“W-where are you going?” Harry spluttered, the coppers would be here any moment-, 

“Going to fight for my king, Harry,” Tommy said, and Harry couldn’t interpret his tone. Tommy pulled on his cap, red hands flashing, cigarette in his mouth. The brim was stained a deep crimson. “See you in hell,” he said, and that bit, Harry knew, had been facetious. He crossed his arms defensively. 

“What makes you think I’m going to hell, eh?” he asked, and Tommy smiled. He shook his head. The razorblades shone. 

“We’re already fuckin’ here,” he muttered, looking around at the pub, which offended Harry at first, but Tommy’s eyes were vague and distant like he wasn’t really seeing the bar but seeing past them, like he was seeing the body in the street. Then he blinked. 

“Have a good night, Harry,” Tommy said, casually, straightening his cuffs, and he strode from the bar. “Try not to get anyone else killed.”

And the glass in Harry’s hands slipped and shattered. 

  
  



	2. regarding dandelions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> more canon snapshots from my AU, apologies if they are somewhat disjointed sans context

1918

It isn’t that good men never get sent to war, it’s that they never return from it. 

“No one came back,” the brothers said, sometimes, and what they meant was “no one came back the same” or maybe not, maybe the empty streets spoke for themselves, in the hissing of wind whipping around stone corners, or maybe that was the whispers of the ghosts. The guilt was the last, but the hardest. 

_ You’ve forgotten about us,  _ said the spirit of a once-good man, and you say  _ never, I promise, I promised,  _ but the hands reach up from the mud and grab your ankles in your dreams and accuses you of the worst crime, the last part, the hardest, you can’t. You promised. 

But you go home.

Lost, like dead, is a permanent state. You go home, but you don’t, your body is there but your soul is stuck in a hole under the ground with the others, and everything is upside down because their bodies are in the hole but the souls came home, you know because they’re beside you, because you can hear them, just around the bend in the road. 

In the twinkling amber of the light through whisky glasses and gaslamps casting warm glows, the mood was a dusty white of dry bone, at odds with the cheerful atmosphere, bare and carved and crackling with exposure. A man had just walked through the doors, and he had eyes like forbidden jewels in the heart of a deep, dark cave. 

“So you made it back alive, Mr. Shelby,” the man at the bar said, 

“What gave you that impression?” the other replied, or maybe, “Whisky,” he said, “Irish.”

The man at the bar nodded. The people in the room were glancing at each other as if to seek others permission to look at the man.  _ He can’t persecute all of us,  _ but that was what  _ they  _ thought, he was a pharaoh and he could send them into the desert.The man moved with deliberate surety, and it was a whole room full of pretenders, all the people, pretending not to stare, and him, pretending not to notice. His eyes stuttered briefly closed as he tossed back the glass, a butterfly’s wings closing and the vibrant color vanishing for the space of a heartbeat, then open again, flashing crystalline and cold. The spirit burned, the spirits burned, down his throat and in his chest. “‘ _ S funny,”  _ Arthur had said once, even though it wasn’t, it wasn’t at all, “ _ even though they says they was put to rest, they still keep followin’ me ‘round,”  _ but they weren’t put to rest, in the dirt, in the mud, hands clawing to the surface, just buried, buried,  _ made it back alive, Mr. Shelby.  _

Tommy gave a command with a lifted glass, 

“Yes, sir,” was the answer. 

_ Antithesis, is what it is, _ he thought, staring at the fingers of burning liquor in the glass,  _ mutual exclusion, incompatibility. If guilt was last, shock was first. And it was over quickly, too quickly, visceral horror turned daily minutiae within two months of being sent off.  _

_ It was worse when they started good. You felt like you were losing something, that way. Otherwise it was like succumbing, an “well, it would have happened eventually”, a defeated sputter, like dying of old age. The fall to hell is usually just a slight drop the last meter down. And it was worse because it didn’t matter. And it didn’t last because it didn’t matter. The good men killed other men who might have been good, but you would never even know, because the trait of potential goodness was an irrelevant factor of no sway, which held no consequence. The ground was hungry and cared not for the sanctity of its meat. And at the end he saw that when it came down to it, a lifelong commitment to morality had exactly the same sway over a man’s fate when staring down a grenade as his opinion on whether or not a dandelion was a misunderstood floral or a voracious weed, the shrapnel would tear into your heart and your god and your honesty and your faithfulness and your little yellow flowers would not shield you,  _

_ And the shock came when they all learned the truth, and it came again, and again, and again, until the news meant nothing like the good meant nothing,  _

_ But it was still worse when it began this way, because part of them all wanted to believe it, at least a bit, that it meant  _ something  _ that it all meant  _ something  _ even if your hands were around another’s throat,  _

_ But the man still died, and you didn’t, and it had nothing to do with dandelions.  _

_ So why not, then?  _ Tommy thought, 

And nothing answered because nothing could. 

“Another?” Harry asked him, and you can guess what he told him, so ( _ “why not”) _ , then, 

“I’ll tell you a secret, Harry; the truth is always what you don’t want to believe. 

And someday, it’ll be God who prays to me.” 

  
  


1917 

Watery Lane was layered in cold like a film over everything she touched. She trailed her hand down the wooden bannister, letting the chills shake the sleep from her body. 

“Ada! It’s been bloody forever! Would you come down, now, please?” Her aunt’s irritated voice rang out down the hallway, loud and sharp, and she started a bit when she turned and saw Ada standing in the kitchen behind her, but recovered quickly. “Finally,” she said, “Are you ready?” 

Ada thought  _ Not really,  _ but she said, “Yes, of course. Sorry, Pol.” She pulled her eyes from the sight of her father slumped over in the tiny guest room, nearly comatose after showing up completely sloshed on the doorstep at two in the morning. How he had heard what day it was, she had no idea. She hadn’t seen him in eight years. It felt about that long for the boys, as well, even if that wasn’t really the case. 

She had seen John and Arthur twice since the start of the war, and Tommy only once, even though he was an officer and was supposed to have been given extra privileges, and never all together. Soldiers were allowed to come home once every fifteen months on permissionaries, but that wasn’t true if you were on the front line, even if technically, you were below it. 

John had been tired. He slept for most of the week he had been given. Arthur had downed a bottle of whisky a night, said he hated having to go back to drinking the piss they gave them in the trenches. And Tommy had barely said a word. 

Now, waiting on the train platform, Ada’s stomach was twisting a bit, half bubbling joy and half seeping apprehension. Her brothers felt infinitely older than her, coming back from years in a different country, years in a different life. And their father back, after all this time, today of all days. They filed off the train in single file, each holding the same equally dingy little rucksack that carried all of their worldly possessions, and her heart clenched. John looked up and grinned when he saw them, and suddenly, Ada wanted to cry, wanted to throw herself into his arms and sob, but they would never have stood for that kind of thing, not in public, so she forced herself to stay put and smile back, and then there came Arthur, freshly shaved and younger-looking for it, yelling her and Polly and Finn’s names, and then Tommy appeared from inside the train, trailing behind, and Ada’s feet had carried her across the platform and into his arms before he had taken more than three steps. 

“‘Ello, Ada,” he said, his voice as low and rumbling as ever, and she blinked hot tears out of her eyes, pressing her face to the front of his uniform so that he wouldn’t see. He smelled different. Tommy hugged her back, quick and tight, she cleared her throat and pulled back, John was spinning Polly around in the air by her waist, much to her chagrin, Arthur was crouching down to ruffle little Finn’s hair. 

“It’s good to have you home,” she said, and tried a watery smile at him, but instead of the one she expected in return, he just nodded slightly and blinked, staring blankly into the distance. 

“‘S’good to see you,” he replied, like he had suddenly realized he ought to, giving her a quick visual sweep. “You look well. All grown up, eh?” 

“Yeah, that’s right,” said Ada, because she wanted him to think she was, with another tentative grin that he still did not return, his blue eyes refracting to gray in the slight fog of the early morning under his beige soldier’s cap. His face was gaunt and hollow like a skeleton, like the war had pulled his bones closer to the surface with the force of death. 

“Where’s dad?” Tommy asked, and Ada bit her lip. So Polly had warned him somehow. 

“Couldn’t get him out of bed,” she answered, reluctantly, and Tommy didn’t look surprised. He didn’t look anything, really. Except lost, like he wasn’t quite sure how he had ended up where he was. He nodded, a tightness flickering through the sharp curve of his jaw. He was looking at Polly and Finn with the same expression she expected men wore as they peeked out over the top of the trenches. She saw him take a short, tight breath, chest expanding with the inhale. She took his hand, and he nearly yanked it away, like a reflex, like a leg jerk when you get hit on tender spot in your knee, and she frowned. 

“It’s alright, Tom,” she said, quietly enough that there was no way for the rest of the family to overhear. The train whistled behind them, melancholy, and began to chug away. Tommy’s lips thinned, but he nodded again, and let her tug him forward. 

Tommy was silent during the ride home, pressed shoulder-to-shoulder between Arthur and John, swaying slightly in the back of the wagon. Polly had bribed the milkman out of his cart for the afternoon, so that they wouldn’t have to walk. No one said anything about it, but John smiled around his toothpick. Finn, however, spoke more during the half hour back to Watery Lane than he had for months, and it made Ada’s chest swell with something dangerous and misplaced, something like hope. 

That night, the bright feeling dissipated into the air around her like the smoke from Tommy’s cigarette. A knock sounded on the front door, echoing through the relative quiet of the house, Tommy stood from his spot at the kitchen table. All the eyes and the ears followed him down the hall, Polly’s stare keen and apprehensive. Knocks on the door past seven were rarely social calls. There was a low murmur of voices Ada couldn’t make out, and her aunt wouldn’t meet her curious gaze. Tommy returned with his eyes downcast, stalking past them, completely shrugging off Polly’s insistent questions. He gathered John and Arthur from their huddle by the fire, spoke a few fast words, and they all began shrugging on their coats and were out the door before so much as glancing at the two women, like a pack of hounds who had caught the scent of blood. Ada huffed. 

“I hate being a bloody girl,” she said, and Polly inclined her chin in acknowledgement but then turned to stare back out the window at her nephew’s retreating forms. 

“Men have their share of burdens, too,” she said, and Ada hummed noncommittally. 

When they returned, Arthur and John had a stumbling body slung between them, arms around their shoulders. Tommy slammed the door behind him so hard that Ada’s teacup rattled, and she exchanged a startled look with Polly. He came into the kitchen, white faced with fury, and Arthur and John dropped their father into a chair in a slump. 

“Ada, upstairs witcha, now,” Arthur said, his voice clearer and less sluggish than Ada could remember hearing it since he had begun sneaking into the Garrison’s liquor supply when he was sixteen. She shook her head. 

“Yes. Go check on Finn,” Tommy told her, his voice flat and detached, completely at odds with the strange, furious gleam in his eyes, she hated seeing him angry, she hated the way his voice sounded, 

“No!” she spat, but then it was Polly, soft and firm all at once, telling her to listen to her brothers, and she stomped out of the kitchen and made a show of banging loudly up the stairs before she crept back down silently, avoiding the creaking fourth step. She peaked into the kitchen through the crack in the mostly-closed door, and gasped, as she caught a glimpse of a raised fist, Tommy hit her father in the face so hard it sent his head lashing to the side, the impact making a heavy  _ smack,  _ and he roared blearily, clutching his chin, Polly was shouting at Tommy, Arthur crossed his arms and John worked his jaw. 

“What the  _ fuck,”  _ Tommy was hissing, in their dad’s face, leaning down, Ada couldn’t separate the pride from the revulsion, “kind of explanation do you have for yourself, eh?” he asked, and Arthur Sr. grinned toothily, blood staining his gums. 

“War finally taughtcha how to hit right, eh, son?” he said, when they were younger, Tommy had spoken with an Irish lilt to mimic his father, and it was strange to remember a time before the sound of his cheerful tone hadn’t made them all cower. Tommy had always hit back, even when he was eleven and their father had broken his arm. It was one of Ada’s earliest memories, Tommy coming home with tears streaming down his cheeks, closing himself in his room for hours before Polly gave up and picked the lock, finding him in a huddled heap on the floor. Now, he swung again, and their father reeled backwards to avoid it, landing unsteadily on his feet but knocking over the chair with a clatter. He pushed the table over, and Ada flinched, but Tommy stood like steel, Arthur and John watching with lowered brows and set teeth. 

“You  _ dare  _ swing at me, you little fucking  _ cretin,  _ I’ll slice yer cock off and throw it out onto the street-,” Arthur Sr. bellowed, lunging forward and grabbing Tommy by his shirt, Tommy cracked his forehead against his father’s and Arthur Sr. toppled. John dropped to catch their father before he hit the ground, but Tommy snapped his hand out, palm up, and barked, 

“Atch!” and John listened like he never had in school, and Ada was wondering what the fuck had happened to them, what had happened to her family- “He’s mine,” Tommy growled, Ada shivered, the violent glare in his eyes had turned savage and icily feral. He hadn’t been a good boy, growing up, but he had never been a bad man. She didn’t know, now. She didn’t know him now. From the floor, her father wheezed a laugh, and tackled Tommy’s ankles out from under him. 

“That’s  _ enough-,”  _ Polly snapped, Arthur was trying to hold Tommy back from their father as they both scuttled to their feet, but he slipped free and aimed a kick to his ribcage before he could rise. It was almost pitiful. It was almost sad. It was almost a victory. Ada bit down on her lip to stifle her empathetic squeak as Tommy’s foot collided, knocking the wind from her father like a popped balloon. 

“Stay down!” Tommy commanded, 

“This is my fuckin’ ‘ouse!” Her father yelled back, once he had recovered his breath, spittle flying from his lips and his face red like a beet, mustache twitching, Tommy’s eyes were cold cold cold, his mouth warped in the faintest sneer. “Giving me fuckin’ orders in me own ‘ouse-,” 

“It’s not  _ your  _ house,” Tommy said, boldly, “this has never been your house. And I’m growing tired of cleaning up all the shit you drag around with you.” Through the crack in the door, Ada could see Arthur’s hands crossed in front of him, her brother’s fingers fluttering anxiously but his face as hard as Tommy’s. His knuckles were already starting to bruise, and John’s eye was blackening. Another pub brawl, then. Her father had been tossed out of at least three pubs that month alone. This time it looked like things had gone even farther south. It looked like someone had gotten killed, it looked like someone had gotten killed by her brothers that her father threw in front of his path of destruction like he always did, made them fight his wars for him, and Tommy was tired of it, of fighting other people’s wars, she could see it, she could tell. Tommy spoke slowly and clearly, looking down at his father like he was a cockroach on the floor. 

“Get out. Don’t come back.” Black lashes blinked over crystal eyes in a face of stone. No one breathed. His voice rang like a bell. Then Arthur Sr. snorted, and Polly said, 

“Thomas, let’s not-,” and Tommy pulled a black revolver from inside his coat, the same one Arthur and John carried, she had forgotten they had been given them, in the war,  _ what a perfect plan for disaster,  _ she thought,  _ teach men to kill, give them all weapons, and send them on home,  _ to bring everything down from the inside, it felt like everything was coming down from the inside- 

“I ever see you again, I’ll kill you,” Tommy said, easily, like he was saying it looked like rain tonight, and their father wasn’t laughing anymore. He blinked woozily at the barrel between his eyes, Polly’s breaths were labored and she stood with one hand outstretched, frozen, like she could drop the bullet out of the air somehow if the trigger was pulled, John was looking frantically between his brother and father. Arthur Sr. spat blood onto the floor, and Ada knew she would have to scrub it out of the worn rug. 

“Yeh won’t,” he said, and Tommy cocked the hammer, and their dad stood. “Yeh won’t see me again,” he added, and relief crossed Tommy’s face before he could conceal it and then just like that, it was gone, and he was gone again too, as if disappearing behind a wall. He lowered the gun. Arthur Sr. put a shaky hand on the wall to brace himself, and limped around the room. John stepped back to let him pass, his eyes on the floor. 

“Nothin’ to say to me, boy? No kind partin’ words for your old man?” Arthur cajolled, and John lifted his chin. 

“Yeah, a few,” he said, spat. “Fuck. Off.” 

Their father’s face soured. 

“What about you, Arthur? My eldest, the man who’ll lead once I’m gone?” He called, and Arthur’s nose twitched and he didn’t meet his namesake’s eyes. 

“You are gone,” he said, quietly, and his voice was sorrowful like a swan song. Their dad turned, finally, to Tommy, who blinked impassively. Before Arthur Sr. could speak, Tommy said, 

“Get away from this family.” 

The older man shook his head, his familiar face drawn in a frown that pulled at the scars on his cheeks. 

“What about you, Addie?” He called, he had known she was listening, maybe they all did. She froze behind the door. “My girl. You want me to go?” 

Ada stood slowly, pushing open the wooden door with a loud squeak. Her family stood, staring at her, like it was her final judgement, like she was God deciding whether to damn a soul to hell. 

“We love you, dad,” she said, softly, and if she was as grown as Tommy claimed, her voice wouldn’t have shaken, but it did. Her father looked pleased, then confused, then concerned, all within a matter of moments. She thought about Tommy’s broken arm, looked at Arthur’s bleeding knuckles and John’s black eye, hoped that Polly would forgive her. Then she turned, and walked back up the stairs. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> hit me up on https://3xc3lsior.tumblr.com :) love you love you love you


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